Price card holder



Jan. 29, 1957 R. ORTHWI'NE PRICE CARD HOLDER Filed Dec. 22, 1953 I IVV E N TOR /3 E0004 F flPTf/W/WE ATTORNEY 3 2,779,114 [Ce Patented Jan. 29, 195.7

PRICE CARD HOLDER Rudolf Orthwine, New York, N. Y.

Application December 22, 1953, Serial No. 399,718

1 Claim. (Cl. 40-11) This invention relates to holders for price cards or the like and particularly to such holders which have no practical limitations as to the nature of the article to which they may be attached or the size of price card they display. The holder has universal application and utility in that it is adapted for attachment to articles regardless of their angular position or dimensions, within a wide range of limits, and for displaying cards and labels having different sizes.

This versatility is achieved without sacrifice of the capacity of the holder to display its price card. The holder is manufactured from one piece of flexible metal stock or blank and is accordingly of simple construction and inexpensive to manufacture and sell.

In accordance with the present invention, small prongs are struck from the body of the cardholder near its top edge. A plurality of card supporting fingers and an eX- tension member from which there is also struck a large prong or tongue are formed at the bottom of the holder. The fingers and extension member are preferably integrally connected to the bottom edge of the holder. The fingers are die bent near their juncture with the body of the holder and bent at right angles thereto to form a card supporting platform. The free ends of the fingers below the score line serve as flexible joints to hold the cards against the body of the holder. The fingers are the sole card supporting elements.

The extension is also scored near the attachment end of its tongue so that it can be made to assume the general rearward disposition of the prongs struck from the body of the holder. The extensions and the prongs are thus adapted to cooperate in holding the card holder to the merchandise display counter. Since these elements are flexible they are capable of attachment to substantially any size shelf or partition. The tongue in the extension member is formed so as to serve as a secondary source of attachment for relatively thin articles. Accordingly the versatility of the holder as an attachment device as well as a display unit is achieved.

The invention will now be described in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which Fig. 1 is a perspective view of an embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 2 shows a card holder attached to a vertical partition by means of its extension and tongue alone;

Fig. 3 is a section taken on the line 33 of Fig. 4 and shows the card holder attached to a horizontal shelf or the like by means of the prongs and extension;

Fig. 4 is a front elevation of the card holder particularly showing its capacity to display a card or label without limitation as to size;

Fig. 5 is an elevation of the holder showing its attachment to a wire and an article of merchandise; and

Fig. 6 is a plan of the stock blank from which the holder is formed.

The holder is made of suitable sheet metal, such as an aluminum alloy, which has the requisite degree of resiliency and will permit of being bent.

The holder body 10 is formed with a plurality of bottom extensions integrally connected to the bottom edge of the body. These elements are card holding fingers 11 and a centrally located extension member 12.

In the undeveloped plan of the stock blank for the embodiment as shown in Fig. 6 the fingers 11 have bending lines in two places at and near their junction with the body 10. The portions between the bending lines project at right angles to the body, being designated platforms 14, and support the price card 15 or other label conveying descriptive information about the displayed merchandise. Below the bottom bending line are the finger joints 16 which are resiliently attached to the platforms 14 and extend upwardly and inwardly therefrom to contact the body 10. Since the fingers 16 are flexible the cards 15 may be easily inserted between the finger 11 and body 10 and pushed down to the supporting platform portions 14 of the fingers. The fingers are independent of the holder attaching elements and are the sole means for supporting the cards in the holder. Thus the holder can display cards of different sizes since the size of the cards is not controlled or limited by the size of the holder itself.

Small prongs 17 are struck from the face of the holder body near the top edge thereof. The prongs are normally rearwardly disposed and because their hinge attachments are narrow as compared to the length of the body 10 which is made of a resilient metal, they are flexible and may be manually bent to any desired angle relative the body face. The flexibility of the prongs is critical as will become apparent.

A spring tongue 18 is struck from the extension 12 and has its hinge attachment near the bottom edge of the holder body. An extra finger 11 is formed out of the tongue 18, the resulting cutout portion of the tongue lending an added flexibility thereto. The base portion of the tongue 18 is bent at a right angle to the extension 12 above the bending line 19 and then downwardly and inwardly below the score line.

The extension is strengthened by ribs 20 and flexibility is imparted thereto by scoring or weakening it as at 21 which is the line of juncture of the extension 12 and the body 10. Where the card holder is to be attached to a relatively thick article such as a shelf, both the prongs and the extension are used cooperatively. The flexibility of these elements is required so that the holder can be accommodated to the particular dimension of the shelf or other article to which the holder is being attached. The hinge attachment of the prongs 17 should be close to the upper edge of the body 10 inasmuch as the greater the distance between the prongs and the extension 12 the larger may be the article to which the holder can be safely and effectively attached.

Where the attached article is relatively thin, the extension 12 and the prongs 17 may be employed independently to attach the holder. When the extension is used alone the article is inserted between the spring tongue 18 and the extension 12 which may be bent to any desired angle, as shown in Fig. 3 and in Fig. 5, due to its flexibility.

Similarly the prongs 17 may be adapted as attachment means independent of the extension 12 and tongue 18. As for example, a wire 23 may be employed to suspend the holder by means of the prongs, which are flexed to about a 45 angle for the purpose thus demonstrating the need for flexibility of these elements.

It is obvious that various other modifications may be made in the construction shown in the drawings and above particularly described, within the scope of the following claim.

What is claimed is:

A card holder attachable to articles of widely variable thickness comprising a body of resilient sheet metal, a rearwardly directed prong stmck from the upper portion of said body and having flexible attachment thereto, an integral extension flexibly connected to the bottom edge of the body and adapted to cooperate with said prong as the primary attaching means, a spring tongue struck from said extension having its attachment to the extension at an angle thereto and substantially in line with tongue with its line of attachment substantially coincident with the bottom edge ofthe body and reversely bent into substantial parallelism with the body.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 370,782 Haskell Oct. 4, 1887 925,757 Cuny June 22, 1909 1,269,867 Shuma'n June 18, 1918 1,399,:63 Richey Sept. 6, 1921 1,852,457 Griesbach Apr. 5, 1932 2,040,750 Long May 12, 1936 

